Bread with colour

In my last post I wrote about bread that was black as coal (charcoal added) and that got me thinking about other additives that could be used to colour bread. Three ingredients came to mind because they were already in my kitchen - spirulina (green), turmeric (yellow), and beet powder (red). The nice thing about these is that they are plants, not just colouring agents. Spirulina is an aquatic algae while turmeric and beets are roots. These three have claims of health benefits associated with them but suffice to say that they are food because they are plants. That's not a trivial statement these days with so many products in the centre aisles of supermarkets with unpronounceable ingredients.

This is what a tablespoon of spirulina, charcoal, turmeric, and beet power look like on 1 inch graph paper. The spirulina looks black in this photo but it is actually just a very dark green. The powdered charcoal is the messiest to deal with, creating little clouds of fine dust whenever it is handled.

Clockwise from upper left, charcoal, turmeric, powdered beet and spirulina

I made four loaves of a basic grainy bread (same recipe as my last post) with one tablespoon of additive in each. Here's what they looked like.

Loaves with charcoal, spirulina, turmeric and beet powder

So, how did they taste? Powdered charcoal seems to have virtually no affect on taste. Of the other three, I would say that powdered beet has the mildest flavour and spirulina is the strongest. If you want to try one, I would suggest powdered beet because it's mild and inexpensive at a health food store. You can also add it to virtually any recipe. If you like turmeric I would also recommend it in bread for the flavour as well as its antioxidant properties. Spirulina is available from a health food store and is the most expensive. However, I like to use it on popcorn (olive oil, engivita yeast, spirulina and salt). As far as I can tell, the only reasons for using powdered charcoal would be either for the health benefits (if you believe them) or for the novelty. I probably won't be using it in bread any more.

Happy experimenting!

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan